Gulen calls for international investigation into failed coup

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The Turkish scholar Fethullah Gulen has called for an international investigation into the failed military coup in Turkey in order to clear his name and find those responsible to be tried for treason.

Imam Muhammed Fethullah Gulen, 75 is the founder of the Hizmet (Service) movement who has been living in self exile in the US for 17 years. He was promptly blamed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the military coup on 15 July 2016.

The Turkish government is putting pressure on the US to extradite Gulen to Turkey. However the US administration is reluctant to do so in the absence of credible evidence against Gulen.

In an article published in the French newspaper, Le Monde on 10 August 2016, Gulen strongly condemned the coup attempt and praised the Turkish people as heroes who saved democracy.

Gulen wrote “On the night of July 15, Turkey went through the most catastrophic tragedy in its recent history as a result of the attempted military coup. The events of that night could be called a serious terror coup. Turkish people from all walks of life who thought the era of military coups was over showed solidarity against the coup and stood on the side of democracy. While the coup attempt was in progress, I condemned it in the strongest terms.”

“Twenty minutes after the military coup attempt surfaced, before the real actors were known, President Erdogan hastily blamed me. It is troubling that an accusation was issued without waiting for the event’s details and the perpetrators’ motives to emerge. As someone who has suffered through four coups in the last 50 years, it is especially insulting to be associated with a coup attempt. I categorically reject such accusations”, he wrote.

Gulen further added “If there are any officers among the coup plotters who consider themselves as a sympathisers of Hizmet movement, in my opinion those people committed treason against the unity of their country by taking part in an event where their own citizens lost their lives. They also violated the values that I have cherished throughout my life, and caused hundreds of thousands of innocent people to suffer under the government’s oppressive treatment”.

Gulen has called for an international investigation to find those responsible for the coup attempt not relying on Turkish Judicial system that he accused of currently being highly politicized.

“No one is above the rule of law, myself included. I would like for those who are responsible for this coup attempt, regardless of their identities, to receive the punishment they deserve if found guilty in a fair trial. The Turkish judiciary has been politicized and controlled by the government since 2014 and, consequently, the possibility of a fair trial is very small. For this reason, I have advocated several times for the establishment of an international commission to investigate the coup attempt and I have expressed my commitment to abide by the findings of such a commission”, he wrote.

Despite Gulen being defamed as a terrorist and his movement called a terrorist organization with a witch hunt resulting in a wide communist style purge of tens of thousands of people after the coup, there has been no evidence of any terrorist activity by the followers of Gulen in any part of the world including Turkey.

Gulen points out “Hizmet movement participants have not been involved in one single violent incident throughout its 50-year history. They haven’t even taken to the streets to confront Turkish security forces while they have been suffering under the government’s “witch hunt,” to use Mr. Erdoğan’s own words, for the last three years”.

“Despite being subjected to a smear campaign and suffering under state oppression for the last three years in the hands of a politically controlled law enforcement and the judiciary, Hizmet movement participants have complied with the law, opposed injustices through legitimate means and only defended their rights within the legal framework”, Gulen added.

Gulen went into self-exile in 1998 after he was continuously defamed, detained and imprisoned and then acquitted after periodic military coups in Turkey since 1971.

“I openly call on the Turkish government to allow for an international commission to investigate the coup attempt, and promise my full cooperation in this matter. If the commission finds one-tenth of the accusations against me to be justified, I am ready to return to Turkey and receive the harshest punishment”, he concluded.

2 Comments

Muammer Hammad Guler
on September 10, 2016 at 10:26 pm

I would like to discuss the article’s one sided coverage of Gulen movement’s involvement in the failed military coup in Turkey.
As you know listening to two sides of the issue is fundamental in objective analysis therefore you should also give Erdogan’s side of the story.
The failed military coup and Gulen movement’s involvement shocked entire Turkey including me.
I will give you one example. Before the military coup all of the opposition parties (CHP left, MHP nationalist, Kurdish and others) were against R T Erdogan including accusing him as a dictator but after the coup all opposition parties pointed at FETO (Fethullah Terror Organisation) as the power behind the coup. This unanimous stand (of course based on the evidence) shows that Fethullah Gulen is the main power behind the military coup in cooperation with the Neo-Cons of USA.
Gulen’s letters to Western media including Le Monde is misleading and is a cover up of his parallel state in Turkey.

As a non Turkish who used to live in Turkey for 10 years I noticed that unfortunately like in many part of Muslim world conspiracy theories sell really well. Understandably since the founding of the Republic, as many of Turkish Muslims had been deprived of proper religious education as well as practice of healthy judiciary system, people don’t know how seriously sinful slandering is (look ayets re: accusation against Seyd. Aisha) or modern ‘presumption of innocence’ principle. Just emotions talk. To me

MYTHS are:
1) Erdogan and Davutoglu are of Jewish descendants (even if so who cares) and that they are the puppets of grand middle east project of the West and Israel
2) Gulen and his followers are of a CIA project

FACTS are:
1) Erdogan did great and brave reforms when came to power 14 yrs ago
2) In 2013 erdogan and his family accused, with credible evidence, in hundreds of millions of dollars worth corruption probe
3) Erdogan effectively and immediately shuffled and fired thousands of judges, police and prosecutors. After corruption probe, Gulen movement was declared terrorist organisation of enemy of state (well before the last attempted coup) again without any court sentence (not even by his newly hand picked judges!)
4) Purge started with thousands of pre-listed public servants within a few hours from the attempted coup. Among the hundreds of thousands of victims was a lady teacher specialised in teaching Quran to disabled kids. They were all accused of being terrorists, oops.
5) No one could yet point out a single idea of violence written or said by Gulen (in his 40 or so years of preaching), or any violent activity from students of thousands of schools inspired by him.

My last humble opinion, once we feel free to accuse someone of serious crimes without evidence, we would end up with being paranoid against our friends even our spouses and this means real destruction of our society.